Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI) is planning to introduce international suppliers to the Paris-based Veolia Environment SA for a $100 million hazardous waste landfill, recycling, and incineration plant at Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia, said Abhimaan Desai, senior business development manager at Invest NI in a report.

Invest NI, a Northern Ireland’s government agency’s branch in Dubai, helps international suppliers based in Northern Ireland or suppliers having branches in that country to do business in the Middle East, Desai added.

He said that the agency is planning to introduce Tyrone-based firms Terex Washing Systems, CDE Global, and the Canadian firm McCloskey International Limited’s Tyrone branch to Veolia for procuring the required project equipment.

Veolia, a French water and energy management company and the project’s EPC contractor, had signed an MoU with Our Green Environment Company (OGE), a subsidiary of the Al-Khobar-based HMG Group. It will build, own, and operate the integrated hazardous waste treatment plant, which will serve Jubail, the largest industrial city in the Middle East. OGE had earlier acquired the preliminary licenses to develop the facilities.

Veolia will support the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) to comply with their regulations, standards, and guidelines to control substances emitted, discharged, and deposited within the industrial cities. The facility will include industrial and medical waste collection and treatment services with an investment of $100 million.The scope of work for the project includes developing integrated hazardous waste landfill, waste treatment plant, recycling, and incineration facilities.

“Veolia has now become a trusted environmental partner for the industry in Saudi Arabia. Partnering with OGE is in line with our commitment to build local alliances to bring a strong  team to deliver this ambitious project,” Xavier Joseph, managing director of Veolia Middle East, was quoted as saying in a report.

“The OGE and Veolia partnership is the strongest pillar in our upcoming success in waste management business in Saudi Arabia,” said Hisham Al Gannas, president of OGE.

Preliminary studies have indicated that Saudi Arabia currently recycles around 10 per cent of waste matter, with 90 per cent disposed through landfill sites, causing damage to the environment, and not making full use of the potential of recyclable materials, a Saudi Press Agency (SPA) report said.

More than 40 per cent of the country’s recyclable materials are produced in three major cities: Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam, said the SPA report.

Under the new Public Investment Fund (PIF) plan, 85 per cent of the recyclable materials, which amounts to 50 million tonnes per year, will be used as alternative energy and as raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

This plan is aligned with the Saudi Vision 2030 goal to safeguard the environment by improving recycling across the kingdom, said the report.